Japan popstar Utada’s mother plunges to death

TOKYO (AFP): The mother of Japanese pop singer Hikaru Utada has been found dead after plunging from a 13th storey apartment in an apparent suicide, reports said Thursday. Police believe Keiko Fuji, 62, jumped to her death from the Tokyo home she shared with a man in his 30s, Jiji Press said, adding foul play was not suspected. Fuji was well-known in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s for her “enka” — a popular folk singing style.Her daughter, whose 1999 debut album “First Love” is one of Japan’s biggest-ever sellers, has had commercial success in Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand, as well as Britain, France, Germany and North America.